NormWatch
- studying social norms in Second Life
"Norm Watch" is a
case study of incidents how, where and why social norms are
broken in Second Life
.
It is part of the
work of the EMIL project.
The EMIL Project
EMIL, “EMergence In the Loop:
simulating the two way dynamics of norm
innovation” (contract n° 033841), is a three-year EC funded
project
(Sixth Framework Programme -Information Society and Technologies-
Citizens and Governance in the Knowledge Based Society) involving six
Partners:
● Institute of Cognitive Science and
Technology, National Research Council CNR-ISTC Italy
● University of Bayreuth, Dept. of Philosophy UBT Germany
● University of Surrey, Centre for Research on Social Simulation UNIS
United Kingdom
● Universität Koblenz-Landau KL Germany
● Manchester Metropolitan University, Centre for Policy Modelling MMU
United Kingdom
● AITIA International Informatics Inc. AITIA Hungary
EMIL is aimed at
understanding and developing design strategies able to
cope with a particular type of complex entities, i.e. social systems.
These are characterized by a 2-way dynamics, consisting of emergent and
immergent processes: emergence from interaction among individual agents
to aggregate level, and immergence of entities (norms) at the aggregate
level into agents' minds. A summary of main theoretical goals is:
- understand and manage complexity in social systems with
autonomous agents;
- understand how new conventions and norms emerge and spread in
these systems;
- study of norm innovation by means of agent-based simulation.
The main technological
aim of the project is to construct computer simulations for exploring
and experimenting upon norm-innovation.
More information about
the EMIL project can be found at their website: http://emil.istc.cnr.it
Aims and Objectives of Norm Watch
The aim of the study is to understand how norms develop and apply in
situations that might be quite new to the people who are
involved. In particular we are interested in how social norms
devlop over time, the extent to which they are specific to the relevant
situation or group, how important they are for the regulation of social
behaviour, and how they are involved in the direction of behaviour.
To this end we plan two studies in Second Life. The first is a
series of interviews with Sim owners/managers to try and elucidate how
their strategies for managing anti-social behaviour within the areas
they control. In that study we hope to gain some evidence about
the development of social norms in Second Life over time. The
Norm Watch study we hope to gather evidence about how norms relate to
the social situations they pertain in, and how these norms are
expressed and enforced.
To this end we are seeking volunteers to report on any incidents in
which they feel that the
social norms have been transgressed. This is relative to the
situation it occurs in. For example, some behaviour that is
completely acceptable in some Mature sims would not be acceptable in PG
sims. Also it might be that what is acceptable depends on the
style and other aspects of the act - something might be acceptable if
it is clever or witty when otherwise it would be unacceptable, or that
something may be tolerated from a newbie that might not be from a more
experienced user of SL.
Volunteers are asked to take a screen shot of such an incident, as well
as cut and paste the relevant chat that occurred, as well as record
other aspects such as their view of the actions or intentions of those
involved. This information is reported via a web page.
Why in Second Life?
There are several reasons why Second Life is an ideal arena for this
study.
- New communities are developing all the time along with their
norms, thus we can get a view of how norms might develop over time
- There are many people who explore SL and might not be aware of
the social norms in any particular place, so transgressions of norms
(both intentional and unintentional) are fairly common
- People are relatively open with their accounts of their actions
and of others in SL due to the pseudo-anonymity SL provides
- It is easy to capture pictures and chat transcripts by anyone in
Second Life due to the built-in features
- Second Life provides an extra layer of protection for the
volunteers and those they report on compared to RL
Ethical Principles
The Norm Watch aims to
apply the highest ethical standards in this project. In
particular the SL IDs of the volunteers and those mentioned in the
reports will not be released to anyone outside the study. I all
publications any data or quotes will be anonymised. The ethical
principles we will follow in the study can be found here.
The
Case-Study Managers for this project are:
(Centre
for Research in Social Simulation, University of Surrey) - soma barbosa in SL
(Centre
for Policy Modelling, Manchester
Metropolitan University) - wata
klata in SL
at the CPM@SL